There are many kinds of stories: fairy tales, fables, funny poems, riddles and jokes. Anansi stories came to the Caribbean from West Africa long ago, and grandparents have told them ever since. Here is one!
Anansi is a clever spider. This golden orb-weaver spider lives in Trinidad and Tobago and builds big, strong webs. Photo: Ianaré Sévi, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Anansi and the Pot of Wisdom
Long ago, Anansi the spider wanted to be the cleverest creature in the world.
He collected all the wisdom he could find and put it in a big clay pot.
“I will hide it at the top of the tallest tree,” he said, “and keep it all for myself!”
He tied the pot to his front and tried to climb. But the pot was in the way, and he kept slipping.
His little son, Ntikuma, called up: “Father, why not tie the pot on your back?”
Anansi was so cross that a child was cleverer than him that he dropped the pot. Crash!
The wisdom spilled out and the wind blew it all over the world. And that is why everyone has a little bit of wisdom today.
Story parts
Characters: Anansi (clever but greedy) and his son Ntikuma (helpful and smart).
Setting: a forest, long ago.
Problem: Anansi wanted to keep all the wisdom for himself, but could not climb with the pot.
What happened: the pot broke and wisdom went all over the world.
Poems play with sounds
Rhyme: The cat in the hat sat on the mat.
Repetition (saying again): Rain, rain, rain on the roof.
Sound words: buzz, splash, crash, pitter-patter.
Same first sound: Silly snakes slide slowly.
Like (comparing): The sun is like a big orange ball.
TRY ITStory and poem fun
Choose a game. Tap your answer.
Let’s practise
Try each one. Then tap Show answer to check.
1. Name two characters in the story.
Show answer
Anansi and Ntikuma.
2. Where did Anansi stories first come from?
Show answer
West Africa. They came to the Caribbean long ago.
3. What is a sound word? Give one.
Show answer
A word that sounds like the noise it names, e.g. buzz, crash, splash.
4. Make a rhyme for “tree”.
Show answer
For example bee, see, me, free.
5. Tell the story again in your own words.
Show answer
Any retelling with the beginning, middle and end.
Quick check
1. What was Anansi’s problem?
Show answer
He wanted to keep all the wisdom but could not climb the tree with the pot in front.
2. What is the setting?
Show answer
A forest, long ago.
3. What lesson can we learn?
Show answer
For example: share what you have; even small children can have good ideas.
Words to know
Say these words with a grown-up. Can you use each one in a sentence?
story · fable · poem · rhyme · character · setting · problem · sound word · repeat
Try it at home
Ask a grandparent or older neighbour to tell you an Anansi story they know.
Act out the Anansi story with a family member. Who will be Ntikuma?
Make up a short rhyme about your pet or favourite food and perform it.
For parents and teachers
After this lesson, your child should be able to:
enjoy and talk about different kinds of stories and poems, including folk tales
describe the setting, characters, events and problem in a story
share feelings about a character and say why
notice rhyme, repetition, sound words, same-first-sound words and comparisons in poems
make up and perform simple rhymes
The Anansi story here is a short retelling of a traditional tale.
Culture is the shared beliefs, stories, language, music, food, clothing and customs of a group of people. In animation and game design, culture shapes characters, settings and stories, and it decides what an audience finds funny, respectful, frightening or offensive. Four related ideas help designers use culture responsibly: folklore, game ratings (age-appropriate content), intellectual property and the monitoring agencies that set and enforce the rules.
Authenticity: stories rooted in real places and traditions feel fresh and believable.
Representation: players like to see people, places and accents like their own on screen.
Respect: careless use of sacred symbols or stereotypes can hurt communities and damage a game’s reputation.
Market: culturally aware games travel better worldwide, and local stories can stand out in a crowded market.
Folklore: culturally and geographically appropriate characters
Folklore is the traditional stories, legends and characters passed down in a community. Mythological characters make memorable game heroes, guides and bosses, but they should be culturally and geographically appropriate: they should match the setting and be presented in a way the source community recognises.
The Caribbean offers rich examples. Anansi, the clever spider who outwits stronger animals, travelled from the Akan people of West Africa to Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and beyond; he suits a puzzle or trickster game. Trinidad and Tobago’s folklore includes Papa Bois, guardian of the forest and its animals, and Mama Dlo, protector of rivers – ideal characters for a game about protecting the environment. Placing these characters in a snowy European forest would feel wrong; placing them in a rainforest with local plants, music and dialect feels right.
Figure 1 – An illustration by Pamela Colman Smith from Annancy Stories (1899), a collection of Jamaican Anansi tales. Anansi stories are shared across West Africa and the Caribbean. Image: Pamela Colman Smith, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Good practice: research with elders, historians and cultural groups; credit your sources; avoid mixing unrelated traditions just for effect; and ask community members to review your designs.
Game ratings: age-appropriate content
A game rating tells buyers the age group a game is suitable for and what content it contains. The CAPE glossary uses the categories of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), used in North America and followed by many Caribbean retailers:
Rating
Meaning
EC – Early Childhood
Suitable for ages 3 and up (this category was retired by the ESRB in 2018; such games are now rated E).
E – Everyone
Suitable for all ages; may contain minimal cartoon or mild violence.
E10+ – Everyone 10+
Suitable for ages 10 and up; more cartoon or mild violence, mild language.
T – Teen
Suitable for ages 13 and up; may contain violence, crude humour and some strong language.
M – Mature 17+
Suitable for ages 17 and up; intense violence and strong language.
AO – Adults Only 18+
Only for adults; rarely used and not sold by most major stores.
Games also carry content descriptors (for example “Mild Fantasy Violence”) and notes about interactive elements such as in-game purchases or users interacting online. Europe uses PEGI (ages 3, 7, 12, 16 and 18), and the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) gives ratings for many digital stores worldwide.
Figure 2 – The ESRB “Early Childhood” rating label used from 1998. Today, games for young children receive the E (Everyone) rating. Image: Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
This short official video explains how the PEGI system labels games in Europe:
Intellectual property violations
Intellectual property (IP) is creative work protected by law: copyright (art, music, code, stories), trademarks (names and logos), patents (inventions) and trade secrets. Common IP violations in games and animation include:
Piracy: copying or distributing games or films without paying or permission.
Asset theft: using someone else’s art, music, fonts or models without a licence.
Cloning and trade-dress copying: copying another game’s look, name and code so closely that players are misled.
Trademark misuse: using famous characters or brand names in your game without permission.
Cultural appropriation of protected works: using a specific traditional design or recording that belongs to a community or artist without permission.
Protect yourself by making original work, keeping your sketches and files as evidence, and using assets with clear licences such as Creative Commons (always follow the attribution terms – as we do at the end of every post on this site).
Roles and responsibilities of monitoring agencies
Agency type
Examples
Responsibilities
Rating boards
ESRB, PEGI, IARC, CERO (Japan)
Review game content, assign age ratings and descriptors, enforce advertising rules.
IP offices
WIPO (worldwide), national IP offices such as the Intellectual Property Office of Trinidad and Tobago
Register trademarks and patents, educate creators, support copyright law.
Collecting societies
Music rights organisations such as COTT (Trinidad and Tobago)
License music and collect royalties for creators.
Law enforcement and customs
Police, customs and border agencies
Seize pirated goods and prosecute large-scale infringement.
Platform holders
App stores and console makers
Require ratings, remove infringing or harmful games, protect children’s privacy.
Example
A team is making Guardians of the Forest, a game in which the player helps Papa Bois protect animals from illegal hunters. Culturally, they interview a local storyteller and a folk troupe, use a steelpan-inspired soundtrack they commission themselves, and set the game in a Northern Range-style rainforest. For the rating, they keep conflict non-violent (hunters are scared away with traps and animal calls) and aim for an E rating. For IP, they draw all characters themselves, use only CC0 sound effects and keep a licence list. They register the game’s name as a trademark before launch.
Exercise
Choose a folklore character from your own country or region. Describe a game role for it that is culturally and geographically appropriate, and one way it could be misused.
Look up the rating of three games you know. Record the rating, the content descriptors and whether you agree with the rating.
Explain the difference between copyright and trademark, giving one game-related example of each.
Name two monitoring agencies and describe the responsibilities of each in protecting players or creators.
Syllabus link: This post is relevant to the CAPE® Animation and Game Design Syllabus, Unit 2: Interactive Design and Game Development, Module 1: Introduction to Interactive Design – Specific Objective 18 (“outline the importance of culture in animation and game design”).
Attributions to media used in this post:
Anansi-34.png – Pamela Colman Smith – Public domain (via Wikimedia Commons)
Some of the most memorable animations and games are built on real culture: the stories, festivals, buildings and art of a particular place. Socio-cultural context means the social and cultural background that gives an idea its meaning. Applying it to your work means using your own community’s folklore (traditional stories and characters), heritage (what is passed down from the past) and everyday life to create characters and worlds that feel original and authentic.
This post uses Caribbean examples, but the method works anywhere. Wherever you live, your own culture’s folklore and heritage is a rich source of ideas.
Why use local culture in animation and games?
Originality – local stories give you characters and settings that audiences have not seen a hundred times before.
Authenticity – you know the details: the food, the music, the way people speak.
Preserving heritage – animation and games can keep traditional stories alive for younger generations.
Sharing with the world – a story told well can travel to audiences in other countries.
Folklore and character development
Folklore characters already have strong looks, personalities and rules, which makes them great starting points for character design. Here are some examples from Caribbean folklore, especially Trinidad and Tobago:
Papa Bois (French patois for “father of the forest”) – the keeper and protector of the forest and its plants and animals. He is often described as a short, strong old man with cloven hooves, a beard of leaves and small horns.
Mama Dlo or Mama D’Leau (from the French maman de l’eau, “mother of the water”) – the protector of rivers and river animals. She is usually shown as a woman with long hair whose body twists into snake-like coils from the waist down.
Soucouyant – a reclusive old woman by day who, at night, strips off her skin and flies across the sky as a ball of fire. Versions of this character appear across the Caribbean, for example as Ol’ Higue in Guyana and Jamaica.
Anansi – a clever spider trickster from the folklore of the Akan people of Ghana. His stories travelled to the Caribbean with enslaved Africans; in Jamaica he is often called Anancy.
Figure 1 – An illustration from Annancy Stories (1899), a book of Jamaican folk tales written and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith.
Notice how each character already suggests gameplay or story: Papa Bois and Mama Dlo protect nature, so they could be guides or guardians in an environmental game; Anansi wins by tricking bigger animals, which suits a puzzle or stealth game.
Festivals and celebrations
Festivals are full of colour, music, movement and costume design. Examples in the Caribbean include Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago, Crop Over in Barbados, Junkanoo in The Bahamas, and religious festivals such as Divali and Eid. Carnival “mas” (masquerade) has traditional characters with their own costumes and movements:
Moko Jumbie – a costumed dancer on tall stilts. The tradition is linked to West African stilt-dancing, and “jumbie” is a Caribbean word for a spirit.
Jab Molassie – the “molasses devil”. Jab comes from the French patois diable (devil), and players cover their bodies in molasses or oil. There are devil characters of different colours, such as the blue devils of Paramin in Trinidad.
Figure 2 – A Moko Jumbie stilt dancer performing at a festival. Tall, swaying movement like this makes a striking animated character.Figure 3 – Children painted as blue devils at the Junior Jab competition in Paramin, Trinidad, during the Carnival season.
Monuments, artefacts and architecture
Real places and objects make excellent environments and props:
Monuments such as Brimstone Hill Fortress in St Kitts, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, could inspire a castle-style level.
Artefacts such as the steelpan, which was developed in Trinidad and Tobago in the twentieth century, or Indigenous pottery displayed in museums, can become collectable items or story clues.
Architecture such as colonial buildings and wooden houses decorated with “gingerbread” fretwork gives a town an instantly recognisable look.
Figure 4 – Boissiere House (1904) in Port of Spain, Trinidad, known for its decorative “gingerbread” woodwork.
Being respectful and accurate
Research from reliable sources: museums, libraries, heritage organisations and people who practise the tradition.
Ask elders and cultural practitioners; the syllabus even suggests inviting folk troupes and heritage experts to speak.
Avoid stereotypes and do not turn living religious practices or sacred objects into jokes or monsters.
Credit the stories and communities you draw from.
Example
Game concept: Guardians of the Forest. The player is a young hiker lost in a rainforest. Papa Bois tests the player with puzzles about protecting animals, Mama Dlo blocks rivers that have been polluted until the player cleans them, and Anansi appears as a helpful but tricky guide. The final level takes place at a festival in a town of gingerbread houses, with Moko Jumbies towering over the crowd.
Watch the animated video below to learn about Anansi and how his stories travelled:
Exercise
Choose a folklore character from your own culture. Research it from at least two reliable sources and write down its appearance, powers and the lesson its story teaches.
Design an animation or game character based on that folklore character. Draw a front view and describe how it moves.
Choose a local festival, monument, artefact or building. Sketch an environment or prop for a game inspired by it.
Write two sentences explaining how you made sure your design is respectful and accurate.
Syllabus link: This post is relevant to the CAPE® Animation and Game Design Syllabus, Unit 1: Fundamentals of Animation and Game Design, Module 2: Drawing and Layout – Specific Objective 7 (“apply socio-cultural context to the development of local ideas and concepts”).
Attributions to media used in this post:
Anansi-34.png – Pamela Colman Smith – Public domain (via Wikimedia Commons)
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